Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-15

versal respect, follows the French political
economist, changing only the order of
statement, and giving land, capital and Ia
Dor as the three factors of production,
and which, when in hearty cooperation,
always keep starvation one year distant.
This writer fatty pronounces Georges
premises to be without foundation and his
conclusions without warrant, and adopts
and proves Bastiat's statement to be true,
that in proportion TO the increase OF cap
ital, the absolute share (of the product
falling to capital is augmented, but the
relative share is diminished, while the rel
alive share Of labor is increased both abso-
lutely and relatively" This same writer
shows by irrefutable statistics that no peo-
pie gain their bread by SO little exertion OF
human labor as the people of this country,
and that the wage rate increases.
Mr. Georges theory put into practice,
we believe, would be communism that
would have all things in common, destroy
self-interest and thus make the indolent
equal sharers with the industrious Long
before Mr.. George, or any of his contempt
raries, it was claimed as he holds, that rent
absorbs wealth, therefore landlords grow
rich therefore the remedy is to deprive
the landlord of his power TO collect rent
by making society, as an organization of
human units, the administrator of the
land. As Mr. Mallock so clearly pointed
cut, "the man who pays rent is poorer, but
only relatively and how much poorer de-
ponds upon many conditions. When the
rent-payer by his labor expended on the
property of another realizes 81, and pays
one-quarter OF it for the use Of the capital
for the property is the hired tool Of his
labor-he is three-quarters richer, but
Henry George in so many words says, in
creased value of the rented land, proper
tionately to the increase of productive
power, results in rent absorbing the in
creased production statement wholly at
variance with the experience OF men, yet
it is the basis for all the old theories upon
which he POUNDS the claim OF an original
plan, for the attainment of a state Of per-
feet justice IN the division of the results OF
mans application of labor to natural things.
The practical answer to Mr. Georges
theory that poverty increases on one hand,
in exact ratio with the augmentation Of
wealth on the other, is disproved by the
statisticians, who show the laboring classes
to be better conditioned than ever before;
the middle property classes, home owners,
more numerous than ever, and both pro-
portionately to the increase of the numbers
Of the very rich.
Mr. Nimmo Is the latest-within a few
days-to prove this to be true. Only a
little more than hundred years ago the
peasant class of Europe was in condition
of misery comparable to which their pres
ent state is that of atfiuence. In the time
of Louis XIV, La Bruyere compared the
French peasantry to wild animals, sun
scorched, chained 10 the earth and scarcely
human; living on black bread, water and
roots-conditions known now in France
only additionally. But under society
recognizing land property rights, the con-
ditions have grown constantly better, until
the peasantry of France has become its
right arm. If the doctrine is sound that
one man has no right to the particular spot
of soil he has won by labor, let the answer
be made to Mallock what right has a
body of men to it, chow does a nation, as
against the rest Of the world, differ from a
landlord as against the rest OF his nation?'
The consideration Of recent essays upon
these topics might be extended almost
indefinitely; the sum of the reading of the
literature Of the subject shows seven-tenths
of it to antagonize Henry George and all
of it to strip him of the claim of origin
atty for his utopian and fallacious, not to
say absurd, theories.